Colbert Sees Right Through Joe Biden Deepfake: ‘First of All, He Doesn’t Mention Scranton’ | Video
On Tuesday, Stephen Colbert spent the entirety of his “The Late Show” monologue talking about the New Hampshire presidential primaries, which by the way happened Tuesday night.
Funny stuff but if, like us, you’re a bit exhausted by Republicans being the main character of every late night monologue (not to mention news, political coverage, social media discourse, etc etc) no matter what happens, you can skip to the end, where Colbert concluded the monologue with a very amusing joke involving Joe Biden.
First, some context for that joke. Over the last week, in what is clearly an attempt at illegal voter suppression, someone created a robocall sent to New Hampshire voters that spoke in Joe Biden’s voice. The fake Biden, which disinformation efforts think might have been created using so-called “AI” technology, urged Biden supporters not to vote in the state’s Democratic primary. (It also included information for unsubscribing from Biden related calls. Sleazy stuff.)
So, at the end of Colbert’s monologue, he explained this situation to viewers and played a recording of the call.
“Okay, that’s obviously fake,” Colbert said. “First of all, he doesn’t mention Scranton, or his father, or the button factory wants. Second, anyone who has ever wound up on a democratic voter list knows there’s absolutely no way to get removed from future calls.”
“But this is concerning,” Colbert continued. “AI is concerning, and the problem’s only gonna get worse. According to AI experts, ‘the political deepfake moment is here.’ If you need any proof. Just listen to how easy it was for an amateur like me to whip up a much more convincing AI Joe Biden robocall. We made this today. And good luck spotting the difference.”
The Colbert rolled the clip, which featured a voice that didn’t sound much like Biden, but did have a very Australian accent rattling off Australian flavored versions of Biden’s favorite cliches:
“Good day mate. It’s me President Joe Biden. This Tuesday, remember hop in your mum’s pouch and head on down to the polls. Tell the venomous snake that works there that you want a Democrat in the outback White House. Now throw another malarkey on the barbie. Come on kangaroo Jack,” the call said. We laughed.
But, if you must know something about the rest of the monologue, it was a lot — like, a LOT — of time spent talking about Nikki Haley and Donald Trump. For instance, Colbert played a campaign song written for Nikki Haley by one of her biggest donors, and then in response to how terrible the song is, declared it is “sort of like if Christian rock suddenly believed there was no God.”
“I can’t believe this is what Lin-Manuel Miranda has been doing since Hamilton. Come on Lin-Manuel. This has big middle school teacher trying to make science cool vibes,” Colbert continued as he switched into character as the teacher. “The elements make up the world we see, and it’s all held together with gravity. I had a lot of time to read up on forests because this summer I got a big divorce. I’m tired now.”
Watch the full monologue at the top of the page now. The Biden stuff is near the very end.
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